Custom Report Development Success Story

Company Overview

Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, part of the Johns Hopkins Health System, is a full-service, JCAHO-accredited academic medical center located in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1773, it is one of the oldest, continuous health care systems on the east coast.

Business Challenge

Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Information Services Department made a strategic decision to use the MEDITECH Data Repository for virtually all financial reporting. With literally hundreds of financial reports required on a daily basis, the DR, which is isolated from the daily transactional activity, was deemed an ideal platform on which to generate these reports. To insure financial reporting success, impeccable DR data integrity was required to guarantee that daily and monthly financial reports were consistent and tie out to known quantities.

Solution

Acmeware, Inc. was initially retained by Johns Hopkins Bayview (JHB) to evaluate the feasibility of using the MEDITECH Data Repository for comprehensive financial system report generation. Acmeware concluded that advantages inherent in the DR's design made it an ideal platform for meeting JHB's report generation requirements.

Subsequently, Acmeware was engaged by JHB to assist in the development of financial and administrative reports summarizing business activity performed in the MEDITECH Healthcare Information System. Report generation logic was developed in the DR using SQL Server's Transact-SQL coding language to construct Stored Procedures. Reports were designed to use DR supplied indexes as well as custom implemented indexes to improve efficiency. Acmeware's knowledge of the BAR application and expertise in DR data structure ensured that financial reports tied to the penny with standard reports available in the BAR and ADM modules. The majority of reports developed provided a consistent snapshot of business activity through a specific time; yesterday, last month, or last fiscal year. These reports, numbering in the hundreds, were scheduled to be automatically rendered on a daily basis and made available via the intranet for viewing. Other reports were designed to be run as ad hoc from an individual manager's desktop. These reports typically passed user entered parameters to an underlying Stored Procedure for optimum performance. Business Objects Crystal Reports was used to present report information in tabular, cross-tab, and graphical form.

To insure the integrity of DR data, Acmeware worked with JHB to develop a strategy for continuously auditing all data used in the process of report generation. Blue Elm's DR Auditor application was used extensively in this effort. Acmeware also worked with MEDITECH, Blue Elm, and JHB to develop a capability to automatically correct any discrepancy identified during data integrity analyses, thus guaranteeing that DR data remains perfectly synchronized with MEDITECH application data.

Conclusion

JHB has been live for several years and successfully performing the majority of financial and administrative reporting using the MEDITECH DR. Acmeware has remained a committed partner with JHB in the ongoing development of new DR-based reports as well as the ongoing management and support of the DR application.